Page 140 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 4

“It’s just overwhelming,” I said, looking away as if embarrassed by my own vulnerability. “I’m tired, Kaisen. I’m so tired of being angry.”

“Then let it go,” he said softly, squeezing my hand. “You don’t have to carry the war anymore. You’re out of New Orleans. You’re out of the Landry crossfire. It’s just us now. A real family.”

He stood up, his movements energized, buoyant. He poured the chamomile tea into the porcelain cup and handed it to me with both hands, watching me take a small sip as if he were presenting an offering.

“Drink your tea, sweetheart,” he murmured, his dark eyes shining with unchecked devotion. “Eat your breakfast. Everything changes today. I promise you.”

I smiled—a tiny, tired curve of my lips—and took a bite of the eggs.

Beneath the linen napkin, hidden in the fold of my skirt, my other hand clenched into a fist so tight my nails bit half-moons into my palm.

He bought it.

He bought it completely, because his ego couldn’t fathom any other reality. He wanted to be the hero so badly that he would accept any lie, any performance, as long as it cast him in the light he craved.

The game had changed. And for the first time in a month, I was holding the dice.

The reward for my submission came before noon.

Kaisen didn’t just unlock the master suite door; he left it propped open.

“You’re not a prisoner here, Truth,” he told me, leaning against the doorframe while I strapped Trumai into the soft fabric wrap against my chest. “You were never meant to be confined to one room. I only kept the doors secured because you were in an acute state of shock. Now that you’re grounded, this boat is your home.”

He gave me the run of the main deck.

I was allowed unescorted access to the grand central salon, the commercial-grade galley, the nursery down the starboard corridor, and the enclosed observation lounge near the bow. The only hard boundaries were the wheelhouse up top and the lower engine rooms—areas he claimed were “hazardous for the baby.”

I nodded with polite compliance, thanking him with a soft murmur, and immediately went to work.

For four weeks, my world had been twelve by fourteen feet of carpet and blacked-out glass. Now, the full anatomy of Kaisen’s floating fortress opened up before me.

This wasn’t a retrofitted pleasure yacht. It was an industrial steel-hull riverboat, over a hundred and eighty feet long, with reinforced bulkheads and a high freeboard designed to navigate both shallow inland waterways and the chop of coastal bays. The engines beneath my feet didn’t whine like speedboats; they produced a low, persistent hydraulic throb that resonated through my tailbone. We were moving at a steady, cautious pace, navigating through the winding green channels of the Intracoastal Waterway.

I walked the corridors with slow, deliberate steps, rocking Trumai gently, humming a mindless lullaby while my eyes mapped every square inch of the vessel.

Cameras.

They were everywhere, but they weren’t omnipotent. High-resolution dome lenses were mounted at every major hallway junction, above the galley entrance, and overlooking the main salon’s leather lounge. But as I turned past the linen storage locker near the iron staircase leading to the upper deck, I caught the angle. The steel stair stringer created a six-foot blind spot along the narrow utility bulkhead. If a person stood flush against that wall, the camera at the end of the hall couldn’t see past the iron risers.

I filed the coordinate into the back of my mind.

Doors and access.

The exterior hatches leading to the outer side-decks were heavy marine steel with rotating dog-latches. They weren’t electronically locked from the inside. But the heavy latches were coated in grease and made a distinct, heavy clack whenever the steel dogs turned.

In the galley, I found a chef’s paradise. Commercial stainless-steel refrigerators, six-burner gas ranges, industrial ice makers, and walk-in dry storage packed with enough non-perishable food to survive a six-month siege. Kaisen hadn’t just prepared for a trip; he had provisioned an apocalypse.

While I pretended to inspect the spice rack, a man in gray, grease-stained coveralls walked in through the aft service door to fill a thermos from the industrial coffee urn.

He wasn’t Hector.

Hector was gone—I knew that much from the whispers I’d overheard through the stateroom vents weeks ago. This new man was thick-necked, white, with a faded marine tattoo on his forearm and pale, dead eyes that barely flickered toward me.

“Morning, ma’am,” he grunted, keeping his distance.

“Good morning,” I replied softly, stepping aside with exaggerated deference.

He grabbed his thermos and left without another word, heading back toward the engine companionway.